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Damien Baker
Damien Lucifer Baker 'is the eldest child of Solvei and Zander. He has been involved in a long-term partnership with Shane and works as a journalist, sometimes spuriously reporting on crime scenes that resulted from actions of gang. He attended college at New York University from 1969 - 1973. He is known for being secretive, aloof, and somewhat standoffish. He writes and enjoys poetry. '''Biography + Timeline Damien was born in November 1951 to Solvei and Zander in Chicago, Illinois. During his infancy, Solvei is emotionally distant and Zander is his main caretaker: he has a strong attachment to Zander throughout most of his childhood, and Zander imparts many of his values about the important roles of intelligence and formality on to him. As a little kid, Damien is notably stoic for his age, which Solvei does not realize until after she has Ignatius, who is decidedly not so. After his brother is born, Damien learns American Sign Language along with his parents and becomes the most fluent in it, because he learns it at a young age. Damien has a fairly normal and uneventful childhood, though as he approaches adolescence he realizes that there are some nights in which his parents are totally absent. Although he doesn't know/isn't told directly about Solvei's mental illness, he comes to realize that his mother doesn't conform to the same social standards of her peers, and recognizes her outbursts. During a manic phase, Solvei often gives him a kind of aggrandizing form of special attention, which comes to shape Damien's self-image of himself. Around the age of fourteen, Damien comes to the realization that he is homosexual. Because of his anxiety over this revelation, he becomes increasingly solitary and avoidant for several months: eventually he comes out to Zander, who in turn tells Solvei. It is never spoken about much, and most of Damien's embarrassment about the issue subsides. During his high school years, Damien is sometimes victimized for his orientation; though he escapes any major harm, he sometimes comes home with nosebleeds or bruises. After Zander threatens one of the perpetrators, Damien is mostly left alone. He begins to date and experiment with boys, though most of the relationships are short-lived and very clandestine. Around 1966-67 Damien develops a romantic crush on Shane, who attends the same high school; Damien assumes him to be straight and aggrieves this fact, and tries to smother his feelings to little avail. However, the two of them become acquainted and Shane appears to become interested in Damien. Damien believes that this is only because Shane plans to ridicule him, but because of his attraction, Damien does not avoid him. On one occasion, Shane invites Damien along with a group of his friends to a bar that they enter with fake IDs--partway through the night, he tells Damien to meet him outside and kisses him behind the building. They begin dating, and after a few months Damien introduces Shane to his parents and brother. Shane begins sneaking into Damien's bedroom some nights, often with minor injuries, and it comes to light that his father is physically abusive towards him. Later, Shane shows up at the Baker household during the day, severely beaten, and Zander takes him to the emergency room. Following this incident, Zander insists that Shane stay with them for his safety and gives him one of the spare bedrooms. This is complicated for Damien; because he is very introverted, he has mixed feelings about his significant other sharing such a close space with him. 'Description' Appearance Personality 'Relationships' Shane Solvei The two of them are initially concerned Though she certainly cares about him a great deal and adores him, Solvei continues to be unsure about how to parent Damien. However, their skepticism and attitude of superiority allows them to have a close relationship, and as Damien grows into adolescence Solvei treats him more and more like a peer of her own age rather than her child. He is privy to some of the symptoms of her bipolar disorder: he has seen her manic several times, in part because she often seeks him out when she is: during his childhood, she would frequently take him out of bed and bring him outside to show him the stars. Therefore Damien somewhat becomes aware of Solvei's mental illness, but it doesn't fully acknowledge/realize what has been going on until he learns about bipolar disorder and the 72-hour mental health hold in a college course. He is disturbed by this revelation, and has this reaction even more so in an astronomy class, when he learns that many of Solvei's nicknames and delusions are real cosmological forms of classfication. Zander Ignatius 'Trivia' *